


Proof of Life

by CinderScoria



Series: her name is jade [11]
Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: And angst, Gen, SPOILERS for s4m25, Season 4 Spoilers, Spoilers, and stress, look away, prepare yourself for incoherent nonesense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 10:13:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4825046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CinderScoria/pseuds/CinderScoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam loses a type of trust he didn't even know he had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Proof of Life

Sam can count on one hand the number of times he’s seen Runner Five cry, and each of them had to do with him.

He figures it’s the universe trying to tell him something. Sam cares about a lot of people, but no one like he does Five. Apparently the feeling is reciprocated. Which he knows, he does, because Five has shown him on numerous occasions that she values him highly. And it's not like he's put off by her reaction, he gets it, obviously. Of course. It's just that he sort of assumed... she'd be happier to see him.

Sam closes his eyes and rests his forehead against the cool metal door to his shack. She isn’t in her room. She isn’t in the hospital. She isn’t in his shack. And Sam knows that if Five doesn’t want to be found, she won’t be.

Runner Five’s very picky about people, he knows, but he’d had her the moment she laid eyes on him. It was instantaneous. Sam took a bit longer to accept that Five was obviously worming her way into his heart, but it happened. Now they’re two peas in a pod, the best team Abel has ever seen, practically attached at the hip.

Or at least they used to be.

But ever since Sam got back, learned he was immune to the zombie virus, and more or less saved Paula’s life, he’s seen his runner maybe twice. That’s more than unusual. That’s downright concerning. The last time Five made a point of avoiding him, it was right after they rescued her from Moonchild’s mind control. She’d taken one look at the bruises on his neck and shut down almost immediately. But they’d gotten through that. When she screwed up, however rare the occasion, he was there with patience and forgiveness and, you know, just being a friend. He learned that she didn’t value herself all that much, and had spent the better part of three years trying to rectify that.

Whatever. The point is, he’s barely seen her, and he knows it’s because of him. Because whenever Sam is in danger she’s always right there, protecting, saving, touching him to assure herself that he’s safe. But not now. Not this time.

“Have you seen Five?” he asks Maxine just after visiting her and the baby, on his way out like it's an offhand question.

Maxine raises her eyebrows. “Yes? She was just in here--left right before you came in.”

Sam frowns as he leaves.

“Janine,” he asks sometime later, catching her just as she’s about to head in to interrogate her brother yet again. “Have you seen Five lately? I’m a bit worried about her.”

"I am neither her keeper nor interested in ever being one, Mr. Yao," she says, very clipped and angry. But he doesn't take it personally. She, of everyone, has good reason to be stressed.

So, two days after his miraculous return to the land of the living, Sam goes in search of his Runner.

He climbs the steps of the bunk house, where the Runners slept, passing each floor and heading for the roof. This is their special place, where Five goes when she can't sleep. It's a warm night, mostly due to the incoming clouds. Still, the breeze isn't unpleasant, and the stench of decaying flesh isn't quite so potent. If he doesn't find her here he's not going to tonight.

The roof is empty. Sam stands at the edge with his hands in his pockets, gazing at the setting sun just hidden behind clouds. He scans Abel's perimeters, his frown setting deeper by the minute. Five keeps getting better and better at this game of hide and seek. He'd been to all the places that had made sense, that he knows she has ties to, and now he had to go back down and start all over. That could take the whole night.

But he's worried, he just is. He's worried and not in the least bit jealous that everyone has seen his Runner but him. How, outside of brushing his cheek, his neck, as they pulled him from the dumpster, she hasn't even touched him. Barely even looked at him, certainly not in the eyes. It's unnerving, it's terrifying, it's wrong.

Sam growls a little under his breath, going to kick at a stray pebble on the roof and missing entirely. The momentum puts him a little off balance. He teeters towards the edge, arms windmilling, when a hand snags in the hood of his sweatshirt and brings him back to relative safety.

That seems familiar.

Five's there when he turns around to face her. Sam nearly deflates in relief. "There you are. You know, I am perfectly capable of catching myself, but thank you for the concern as usual, Five."

She stares at him. Blankly. She's dressed in pajamas with her hair pulled into a bun, glasses fit slightly crooked as always on her nose. It's not often he gets to see her like this. Five is plenty busy as Head of Runners, always going out there nonstop, like a Terminator of Abel Township. She doesn't usually dress comfortably, always has to feel on guard in case someone needs her help immediately. Which, of course, happens. Quite regularly.

But she looks more or less relaxed. Well. Except for her rather wide Asian eyes, blinking owlishly at him, and Sam realizes all of a sudden that he can't read her face.

He's the best at reading her face. Everybody knows it. And Sam isn't really one to brag, but they have some sort of connection don't they? That's why they make such a good team, because Sam can read his Runner's body language like a book and act accordingly. They're close. They are. But this is new territory.

"Five," he starts cautiously, "are you all right?"

She just stares at him. Her mouth is a bit slack, thick lips slightly parted enough to show her two front teeth. Her eyebrows are raised in a way that's almost wonder, but her eyes... he thinks it's fear. That's what it looks like. But it doesn't match the rest of her body.

Sam reaches out and she pulls away, movements jerky, like a spooked animal. He draws his hand back. "What's wrong with you?" he demands. "Two days and I haven't even seen you, haven't talked to you, haven't done anything! I mean, I know I sort of died but I feel like that warrants a bit more celebration don't you think?"

And Five full on slaps him. Open hand, straight across the face, just hard enough for his head to snap to the side and for him to see stars for a second.

"Ow! What the hell was that for!" he shouts, mostly out of confusion, because aside from glaring circumstances Five has never hit him before.

She's sort of just standing there, arm still raised, with the same expression, all slack, emotionless face and blown pupils. Sam's extremely lost.

"I haven't seen you at all since I got back, not once have you talked to me, not once have you been in to say hello!" He sucks in a breath. "What did I do? Why aren’t we talking?"

Nothing. She hasn't moved from her frozen position and she hasn't blinked once. Sam straightens up again, taking a step towards her, and she skitters a step back.

Sam huffs in frustration. "I don't want to say... I don't try to expect more out of our relationship Five but... I mean, you went to see my baby without me." His voice cracks. "I just thought that... I thought you'd be happy I'm still here. Right? I just... did I do something wrong? Tell me what I did wrong so I can fix it, Five, please, you... you're scaring me."

They stand there on the roof, Sam with his hands out helplessly and Five still as a statue before him. She doesn't even blink. But her posture eases, and her arm lowers, and like strings cut she sinks to the roof and stares up at him until he sits cross legged in front of her.

"What did I do?" he says again.

She shakes her head, but her eyes are still wide as she places her hands, one face up, one face down, and flips them over.

"But I'm not dead," he insists.

Another headshake. _“Doesn't matter. Died.”_

Her fingers are trembling. She's scared. That's it, that's all it is, of _course_ she is. He doesn't recognize her face forming the expression but that's exactly what it is. Fear. And fear doesn't manifest well on her face--she's quiet. Still. It's taken him a long time to realize that Five is a lot of noise without actually saying anything, vocally or otherwise. But Five, he knows, deals with fear in anger. She fights what she fears, be it zombies or Van Ark or Moonchild or whatever. What he's looking at now is pure, raw, unadulterated fear, punctuated by something, some pain. She looks scared, she looks hurt, she looks...

Betrayed.

Oh.

Sam sits there feeling rather stupid. "Five, come on," he sighs, running a hand through his hair. He's cut it recently, sick of looking like a boy when he's a father now, but Five still ruffles it up every once in a while like she's the older one, not him. He continues, "They took my daughter, Five. Maxine and Paula couldn't have done it, and I wasn't going to stay behind, not this time, not after all the damage Tom's done. Don't you understand? This was my choice, not yours. I don't need your permission to leave these walls, and it's not your fault I was out there. Okay?"

But Five shakes her head again, hands coming up to sign, _“I know.”_ And she's never had to talk so much before, outside of briefings, and even then it's all written down. Sam waits patiently as she gnaws on her lip, not breaking eye contact as she tries to figure out what to say.

She raises her hands. _“You are here,”_ she says. _“But I still feel like you are dead.”_

"But I'm not," he says again.

Five snaps her mouth shut, and there's the anger, familiar in the furrowing of her brow an the tightening of her jaw. _“But it feels like you're dead!”_

The "feel" is punctuated harshly against her chest, and she doesn't blink. Then she closes her eyes, tilting her head back so her face can touch the sky. Her hands come up but she doesn't sign anything, and by the look on her face he can tell she doesn't know the sign she's searching for.

So instead she opens her eyes and rolls her head back, brow furrowed, and mouths, "I mourned."

She finger spells it too, mouths, "I still mourn."

"Five." He sounds stunned, but not nearly as much as he feels. "I'm right here. I promise."

 _“You left!”_ Back to signing now, words he can recognize. _“You are the only person who can't leave, can never leave, and I thought you died! And I cried!”  
_

And here she blinks rapidly, making up for her wide eyed stare as she tries and fails to fight back tears. And her mouth twists into something ugly, deepset and agonized.

She points at him, doesn't quite touch him. _“You forced me to leave you. I listened. I always listen and you--you lied.”_

"About what?" he says incredulously.

 _“I don't know!”_ She throws her hands up, and her breathing is coming harshly. “ _I wanted you to stay and you didn't, and I almost didn't worry, and I thought I would get there first and I thought you would stay and I was wrong.”_

Five stops, doesn't bother to wipe the tears from her cheeks. She gives him the same terrified look. He doesn't know what to say.

 _“Wrong,”_ she signs again, the y handshape pressed tight to her chin.

"You're upset with me," Sam says unhappily.

She nods, and then signs, _“Myself, too.”_

They sit there in silence while Five stops crying but leaves the tears on her cheeks, too tired to wipe them away. Sam struggles to understand. He’s not entirely sure Five understands either.

When she first opened that dumpster, Sam had been prepared with all the reasons she should not be touching him. He knew she would throw her arms around him the second she saw he was still breathing, still himself… but she didn’t. She stared at him with the same expression she’d worn all night, stepping up just to cup her hand to his face, thumb across his cheek, gazing deeply into his eyes like she would never get to look at him again.

And that was it. She hasn’t touched him since. Well, Sam’s going to change that. Though Five needs touch, she never likes receiving it. She initiates all contact, always, except for Sam.

He uses that advantage, scooting closer until their knees touch. “Sorry,” he says, leaning forward. “Sorry I died. Sorry I didn’t die. Sorry I made you leave. Sorry about all of this.”

She stays where she is, allowing him to dip his chin and press his forehead against hers. Five holds her breath, grinds her teeth, trembles like she does when she can’t figure out why people would ever want to touch her if she hadn’t done anything to deserve it. But Sam ignores all that. He reaches down to grab her hand, spreading her fingers and guiding them to his chest.

“I’m right here,” he whispers. “Right here.”

He feels her fingers curl into his sweatshirt, finding his heart, feeling it keeping time with her own pulse. She pulls back, and still looks wholly angry but kind of hopeful too.

 _“Alive?”_ she signs, using one hand, the other not willing to let go of him so quickly.

“Alive,” he confirms.

She searches his eyes, looking for a lie, and finds none. Then she nods and turns her head, craning it upwards to look at the sky. When she faces him again, he smiles because he absolutely knows that expression.

“Yeah, I’ll stay,” he says, and they settle back to watch the sky turn around them.

**Author's Note:**

> so like
> 
> I didn't really explain this very well, so here's something a bit clearer:
> 
> Last year I attempted suicide. After I got out of the hospital, my mom acted really strange towards me. More loving, more clingy, softer, quieter. And that's really strange for my mom (don't get me wrong, she's amazing, I love her so much). And my roommate, she practically attached herself to my hip when I got home, like she was scared if she blinked I would be gone. And it took me a while to realize they were mourning me, grieving me, even though I was standing right there and I wasn't going anywhere. There's a type of trust you build up with people you care about, not that they'll always be there necessarily but that they'll always be alive. Someone to come back to. Even if they leave it's, you know, it's like a hope thing.
> 
> And it's weird because you know, going in, that you can't get attached to people in a story set in a zombie apocalypse. People die, people you love, people you hate, doesn't matter. Characters, people who aren't really people, you KNOW that, but somehow there's always that one person you come back to. Every time. The one person you know is safe. You don't even consciously think about it is the thing, because of COURSE there's always a chance Sam could die, but he's not on the front lines. He's safe, in his shack, and you will protect him with your life. You think, okay, favorites can come and go and that's okay, because you're always going to have Sam. And then you turned around and he was gone.
> 
> And you don't ever really know how much you love someone until they're not there to see it anymore. So you just, you sort of tell yourself you'd scream it at them for the rest of your life if they just give them back. And they do, but you're already in the stages, you're already caught in a place where you're trying to accept that they're not coming back and then they do and all of a sudden the world's tipped over and you're not sure where fear stops and relief begins.
> 
> Nng yeah, I'm terrible at this. Basically, I trusted Sam to stay. Didn't realize that I trusted him to stay. Didn't even think it out loud. But when he didn't, that trust is just shattered, you know? It's taken me a year to build that trust up again. I don't even know if I have it all back yet. But when Sam died, I found myself on the other side of the curtain. And I needed this. So I wrote it.
> 
> Tell me what you think?


End file.
